• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, November 17, 2008

Why get up? Now, couch potatoes who subscribe to TiVo can order a Domino's Pizza through the service, thanks to an agreement between the two companies.

Here's how it works: Say you're watching "Monday Night Football" and an ad for Domino's Pizza shows up. Right there, as you view the ad and hear your tummy growl, you can click through, order the pizza and have it at your home in about a half hour.

"We are really excited about this--and not just because we are the first to market and the first national program here, but because it represents the convergence between the Internet and television," says Rob Weisberg, vice president of precision and print marketing at Domino's. "We believe this is the future of marketing, this interaction with consumers, so that they are receiving entertainment and doing their shopping."

"We expect this is the way that consumers will interact with brands, with their friends, families, business contacts, etcetera," Weisberg tells Marketing Daily. "The only thing better is if we could actually beam the pizza to the consumer." Domino's is targeting TiVo subscribers as well as potential subscribers through its "gold sponsorship" that will last 40 weeks. This includes a special tag in its national TV ads that TiVo servers can recognize, thereby allowing the click-through during the ad's broadcast. Also, at TiVo "central" or the service's "home page," where subscribers can view their recorded shows and download a movie, one of the top five options will be set off with a star: Order a pizza from Domino's.

"We will be right at front and center," says Weisberg, "because every TiVo subscriber has to go through that. He says there are about eight million subscribers. There also will be some video content that subscribers can access--"fun videos around interactive ordering," he says. For its part, TiVo will tout Domino's Pizza and the fact that it can be ordered through the service in its subscriber emails and billing statements. In addition, TiVo's sales force is touting educational and training material to push the fact of this innovation.

At Dominos.com, in the company's emails and in print ads for markets with high penetration of TiVo subscribers, the news will be trumpeted. Mobile marketing? Not so much, says Weisberg. "We have had mobile ordering for a year," he says, "and we treat it with kid gloves. We don't think someone in a meeting necessarily would want the interruption. We're careful not to overstep our bounds."